


you do not have to be good

by historymiss



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Ianthe did nothing wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22333348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: For all it’s bareness, this room is yours. You’ve never had a room to yourself before.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	you do not have to be good

The Mithraeum is too big. 

You didn’t think this at first, as you walked into your cell, shoulder still aching from where they’d grafted living bone to the stump that Cytherea had left you with. Four walls made of silvery metal, a bunk, some space for the belongings you don’t have. Serviceable, yes, but hardly the opulence you’re used to. It seemed a let down, honestly, and Babs laughs a spiteful, reedy stutter through your lips as you take it in. You clamp your jaw shut, teeth tight together, to silence him.

For all it’s bareness, this room is yours. You’ve never had a room to yourself before.

Slowly, you walk forward into the empty space. You raise your mismatched hands, legit them outward, extend your fingers like branches seeking the sun. Yours. This place, this title, this power that roils queasily inside your belly like a live thing, a fox eating your guts.

Vertigo fills you and you stumble, dizzy, to the bed and sit down hard, bringing your hands to your face and flinching at the cold metal of your own touch.

Your jaw aches from keeping it tight shut. You cannot speak. To speak might be to whimper, cry, or laugh, to lick your lips and taste the blood that remains. 

Naberius Tern served you as playmate, then guard, then cavalier, since he was six years old. The taste of his blood is so familiar, you barely notice when it fills your mouth. You savour it, unknowing, for a moment- as if time had unwound itself and it could all be taken back. You can still be the shadow sister, the power to Corona’s brilliance.

You don’t have to be here, in this bare room in a too-big ship, heading to war. You don’t have to live with what you’ve done.

A sob forces it’s way past your teeth.

Which of you makes it is no longer certain.


End file.
